Recent concerns concerning a governmental contribution by a Mullvad co-founder have raised questions concerning the Tor Project's backing association alongside the company. We are not terminating the association but are environment apparent boundaries on our association alongside Mullvad.
Members of the Tor community have asked us to explain how continued collaboration alongside Mullvad fits alongside the Tor Project's individual entitlements mission. We have heard the two calls to end the association and concerns concerning what that would average for Tor's activity and the communities affected. We desire to explain our decision to continue our specialized collaboration alongside Mullvad and acknowledge the difficult trade-offs rearward it. Our decision followed a thorough due diligence procedure that engaged extended discussions alongside community members, staff, and the board, a personnel survey, and detailed financial inspection and circumstance planning.
The Tor Project’s goal is to advancement individual entitlements and freedoms. We build privacy and anti-censorship tools that group use to defend themselves from repression and surveillance, and province themselves freely. We volition continue this activity alongside communities whose entitlements are under threat.
While Tor defends liberated speech, not all address is likewise compatible alongside our mission. We powerfully oppose rhetoric that threatens another individual entitlements and freedoms.
The activity to advance and maintain the individual correct to privacy, liberated speech, and liberated admission to data online is seriously under-resourced. This activity requires and benefits from collaboration throughout organizations. Sometimes that activity requires making difficult compromises to advancement particular goals we cognize volition advantage our communities in the lengthy run.
We are continuing our specialized collaboration alongside Mullvad to prolong activity that Tor users and contributors depend on. This collaboration has helped enhance the structure, maintainability, and auditability of Tor Browser’s codebase, expanded feedback from users beyond Tor Browser’s center audience, and created a lower-risk surroundings to test features that may afterward advantage Tor Browser users. It additionally gives additional group admission to online privacy through an additional free, open-source tool that serves distinct person needs. We acknowledge that the possible benefits to Mullvad of specified a collaboration are difficult for several in our community to accept. Our duty is to justify that this collaboration does not colony our goal or the Tor Project's independence.
Tor Project has paused proactive co-branding alongside Mullvad. That intermission applies to shared promotional action during the specialized collaboration continues in alignment alongside our narrowly scoped agreement. We have additionally reviewed how Mullvad Browser is described and endorsed on our owned channels, and clarified tongue suggesting broader alignment between our values. These changes are intended to depict the association additional accurately and evade notions of implied endorsement.
We cognize this decision volition not fulfill everyone. Continuing the collaboration carries a disbursal to rely for several in our community, and we obtain that seriously. We are grateful to the members of our community who have raised concerns, asked difficult questions, and reminded us what is at stake. Those concerns are shaping our way forward. Tor’s goal has continually required the two regulation and pragmatism. We volition continue to defend privacy, anonymity, liberty of expression, and admission to data during making apparent that our collaborations must serve, and never obscure, our individual entitlements commitments.
